Our U13 hurlers got their campaign off to a winning start away to Two Mile House back in April. After a hard fought game Rathmore NS scored a goal late on through Niall Grainger to hand us a one point victory, Rathmore NS 2-05 Two Mile House 3-01…..

Following this game we secured further victories against Rathangan, Kill and G.S. Nás na Riogh. This left us top of our group and into the semi-finals where we faced Confey in Clane on June 1 st . After an excellent start where Sara Carroll scored 3 early goals, Rathmore NS went on to win with a score line of Rathmore NS 8-10 Confey 2-03. For the first time we had now booked our place in Division 2 Final, to be played in Moorefield on the 9th of June. In the final we were up against Sallins who had beaten Two Mile House in the other semi-final. Rathmore NS got off to a great start when Sara Carroll struck for a goal with just 5 minutes on the clock. It was an evenly fought first half but Sallins finished the half stronger and went in leading by 5 points at the break. After half time Rathmore NS started the second half as they did the first but this time they scored two early goals to go a point up. This bright start to the second half was short lived however as Sallins came fighting back into the game and grabbed a couple of goals of their own to retake the lead. Each player on the Rathmore NS team, fought as hard as they could until the end in what was a very entertaining game of hurling played at a very high standard. Unfortunately for Rathmore NS it wasn’t to be our day as we were beaten by a better Sallins team on the day despite excellent displays from Darragh Jameson, Tom Dockery and Niall Grainger. But every player did both their school and themselves proud on the day, and it was a great achievement for Rathmore NS to get to the Division 2 final but that was the least these players deserved for the effort they put in this year. After well over 30 training sessions the improvement in these players from their first game to their last was a success in itself and I would like to thank them all for their efforts. And as the dust settles on another year of hurling, an U11 final victory and an U13 final defeat will go down as a very successful year and next year we’ll hopefully go one better. To the 6 th class hurlers who are leaving us this year, I would like to give them special thanks for their efforts on the hurling field over the years and I hope that they continue to play hurling at school or club level in the future.